GLOBAL FAMILY JUSTICE INITIATIVE

The Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) at Ryerson University is launching the Global Family Justice Initiative (GFJI). Our goal: to help separating families get the justice they need in the way they need it – faster, simpler, and more affordable. The initiative will accelerate reaching that goal by identifying and supporting world change leaders, building a coalition of the willing, setting a target date for reaching the goal and measuring the progress, and building solutions that will advance the goal.

A faster, simpler, and more affordable approach for families to resolve the issues they face during separation is needed. Many dedicated individuals and organizations have worked to achieve this goal and solve the family access to justice problem. We must build on their progress. The challenge remains, unfortunately, and in some ways the problem is getting worse. Families need an approach that works for them.

The Legal Innovation Zone at Ryerson University’s 4 part initiative supports the move to a family justice approach that works better for the families that need it.

Family Law Innovation Conference. June 4, 2018. World change leaders were invited to meet and share their innovative approaches to helping families so that we can learn, challenge, adapt and improve.

Family Justice Achievement Measure. For release January 30, 2018. What gets measured gets done. It’s time to set the target and measure the progress.

Community Family Justice Engagement. Through gatherings, webinars, pop-up family justice meetings, and other initiatives, people who want to help can shape and create improved family justice. Join the Movement

Family Law Portal. The Family Law Portal gives you information. It is free. It does not ask you for identifying information. The Portal will help you understand your rights, your responsibilities, the decisions you need to make, and the documents you will need.

Einstein said that the level of thinking that got us to where we are is not the level of thinking that will get us to where we need to be. Let’s build on what has been accomplished so far, and take the next steps. It’s time to solve this problem. If we work together, and build a coalition of the willing, we can achieve what so many families desperately need.

Family Law Innovation Conference

On June 4, 2018, world change leaders were invited to meet and share their innovative approaches to helping families achieve justice faster, simpler and more affordably. We learned from them, challenged both them and ourselves, and hoped to see their ideas being adapted to our jurisdiction and improving the results for families.

The speakers, from both the public and private world, were given a short time to highlight their initiatives. We brought together as many as possible. We also hosted a Family Progress Place, where initiatives, both technological and process oriented, public and private, that have made, or likely could make, a tangible difference in the push for better approaches for families going through a separation were shown. Family access to justice is a global problem and we are convinced that progress can be found from anywhere and everywhere.

Prior to the conference, we opened up the application process for potential speakers and people looking to take part in the Family Progress Place.

Family Justice Achievement Measure

What gets measured gets done. It is time to set the target and measure the progress. We must start to measure the nature and extent of the challenges families face trying to access the law and highlight the ability of initiatives to meet all or part of the challenge.

Let’s start identifying the challenge and set out a schedule to fix it. Initiatives that will or might advance the goal will be highlighted to see how they may impact the challenges we face.

Families need us to achieve the target. Anything less does not accomplish for them what it must.

The Goal: By June 3, 2019, the access to justice crisis in family law is substantially solved. At least 80% of families using the family justice system in Ontario will have a faster, simpler, and more affordable alternative available to them to resolve their separation issues.

Community Family Justice Engagement

Through gatherings, webinars, pop-up family justice meetings, and other initiatives, people who want to help can shape and create improved family justice. We are inviting Ontarians, Canadians, and people around the world, those in the legal profession and the overwhelming majority who aren’t, to participate. We need to build a coalition of the willing-those willing to build on the important work and progress to date, and finally deliver the justice that so many need.

We hope to work with you to break down barriers to change and walls and build an open-source movement that brings together both the traditional and the non-traditional, bound together by a commitment to affect change.

The level of thinking that got us to where we are is not the level of thinking that will get us to where we want to be (thanks Einstein).

Join the Movement for Progress. Send us your thoughts, ideas, initiatives and progress. Sign up to be included on the list to receive the periodic updates.

Family Law Portal

The Family Law Portal gives you information. It is free. It does not ask you for identifying information. The Portal will help you understand your rights, your responsibilities, the decisions you need to make, and the documents you will need.

Two years ago the LIZ launched the Family Reform Community Collaboration to see if the community could come together to outline an approach that would provide the families that wanted it with a faster, simpler and more affordable approach to resolving their family separation issues.

The initiative was a remarkable success. Over 200 community members, many from the legal profession joining others from outside it, came together over a four month period. This process helped identify the key building blocks of a better approach.

Now, thanks to support from the Law Foundation of Ontario, and a very generous anonymous donor, we were able to use what we learned to develop the Family Law Portal. This is a personalized, user-friendly, interactive online portal where families can obtain what they need to facilitate faster, simpler and more affordable resolution of their issues.

The Family Law Portal is supported by several leading family law practitioners and other experts with well over 100 years of combined experience. The team is led by Dr. Barbara Landau and includes Tom Dart, Yasemin Diamante, Sina Hariri, Judith Huddart, Neil Maisel and Daniella Wald.